“Which I intend to do right now,” Major Wolfe said, swiftly retying the fellow’s arms behind his back. “Perhaps a few days in Newgate or the hulks will loosen your tongue, lad.”
“Wait!” Gwyn said. “You’re leaving again? We haven’t seen each other in days!”
“I’d take you with me, dearling,” Major Wolfe said, a decided softness in his voice, “but we came by a two-seat post chaise, and there’s no room.”
“We’ll carry Gwyn back,” Thorn said. “I already promised Lady Norley and Olivia that I would accompany them to London tomorrow, so Gwyn is welcome to join us.”
Olivia smiled at Gwyn. “I would enjoy having more of a chance to chat.”
Gwyn smiled back. “That sounds wonderful.”
Then she walked Major Wolfe and his prisoner out, probably so she could spend a few more precious minutes with her husband.
“Your sister and Major Wolfe seem very much in love,” Olivia said, now that she was alone with Thorn once again.
Will that ever be us? Are you even capable of that? She knew better than to ask questions she might not like the answers to.
Thorn pulled her close. “What they’re in is lust.” He brushed a kiss to her lips. “I know the feeling.”
She did, too, but she was hoping for both love and lust from him. Which really wasn’t fair, given her uncertainty about her own feelings. “You don’t think it’s more than lust?”
“I think they think it’s more than that. And they’re entitled to their delusions.”
He tried to kiss her again, but she was having none of it. “The way your parents were entitled to theirs?”
His face clouded over. “I’d rather not talk about my parents right now. Not when my sister will return any minute and prevent me from stealing a kiss.”
“Too late,” Gwyn said cheerily from the door. “I’m back. And now that you two are engaged, I think it’s high time we discuss the wedding.” She walked in. “Although perhaps we should wait for Lady Norley.”
“Absolutely not,” Olivia said. “I love Mama, but she does much better if you offer her a fait accompli. Otherwise, she dithers forever over each decision and ends up with nothing to show for it.”
“Here’s what I discovered from planning my own wedding not that long ago,” Gwyn said. “You should start with the guest list. Then we’ll know exactly how large or small the wedding is, and where we wish to have it.”
“Here,” Thorn said. “It will be here. I’ll acquire a special license tomorrow when I’m in London, and then we can have it as soon as possible. But here.”
Gwyn eyed him and Olivia suspiciously. “Is there something you’re not telling me about why you have to marry so hastily?”
Thorn blinked like a fox caught in torchlight.
Olivia shook her head. “Your brother hasn’t considered that his demand sounds questionable when weddings usually take weeks to plan.” She smiled at Gwyn. “But no, there isn’t a reason for haste. Just the fact that your brother is the impatient sort.”
“Oh, you mean, he’s a man,” Gwyn said.
“Precisely,” Olivia said. “And like a man he just assumes that what his bride-to-be wants is the same as what he wants.”
“I can hear both of you, you realize,” he said sourly.
“Trust me, we do,” Olivia said.
“We just don’t care,” Gwyn added.
They both laughed. Oh, how Olivia was enjoying being able to join Thorn’s sister in teasing him.
“But getting back to the guest list,” Olivia said, “shouldn’t we decide where we want it first? Because if, for example, all the dukes of Thornstock have been married at Rosethorn, then I wouldn’t want to go against tradition, and there would be plenty of room for a large wedding and breakfast. But if Mama truly wants me to marry from our parish church and have the breakfast at home, then I couldn’t have as many people.”
Gwyn tapped her chin. “If I remember what my mother said, her wedding to our father did take place here. I wonder how many people attended.”
“Just ask her when you ask who was invited to the house for our birth,” Thorn said dryly.
“Oh!” Gwyn cried. “I just figured out how to learn who went to that house party as well as who was at Grey’s christening. And we don’t even have to tell Mama the truth about why we’re asking. We’ll just say we want to invite those same people to your wedding!”
Olivia frowned. “But I don’t know any of those people, and some of them are likely to be dead, anyway.”
“She’s not talking about actually inviting them to our wedding, sweeting,” Thorn said. “She’s talking about using that as a ruse to gain the guest lists from the two house parties without alarming our mother needlessly. Then we can compare the lists to figure out who attended both parties. Because that could seriously narrow our suspect list for who killed Mother’s first two husbands. Assuming it’s the same person for both.”
“That’s brilliant!” Olivia said.
“Why, thank you,” Gwyn said.
Olivia frowned. “But if your villain paid someone like Elias to do the actual poisoning and the tampering with the carriage, we might not find ourselves any closer to the truth.”
“I don’t know,” Gwyn said. “I suspect that whoever this is probably wouldn’t have trusted a henchman for the actual murdering. It could too easily come back to him or her. After all, Elias might have told us who’d hired him if he’d been afraid of being charged with murder. But since Elias knew he probably wouldn’t hang for what he’d done . . .”
“Good point,” Thorn said. “So, I’ll add that to my list of what I must do while in London: ask Mother for the guest lists for both house parties—and hope her memory isn’t too faulty to reconstruct them.”
Gwyn snorted. “I’m sure she has them all written down somewhere in a box labeled ‘Wedding to Duke of Thornstock’ and a corresponding box labeled ‘Wedding to Duke of Greycourt.’ You know Mama—sentimental to the core. I think she still has her debut gown somewhere in the boxes in Rosethorn’s attic.”
“Does she?” Olivia frowned. “How odd. It’s not as if she could wear the gown again, what with the changes in fashion over the years.”
“Olivia is not sentimental, is she?” Gwyn asked her brother.
Thorn chuckled. “Not that I’ve noticed.”
Olivia had an odd feeling the twins were poking fun at her. But she didn’t mind. She was finally about to gain siblings who teased her. And stood up for her. And included her in all their schemes.
Although it didn’t make up for Thorn not being able to tell her he loved her, it still made up for a lot.
Chapter Sixteen
Thorn’s pleasure at having gained Olivia’s hand began to dim the longer his fiancée, his sister, and his future mother-in-law spent at dinner discussing his upcoming nuptials. Actually, his pleasure was becoming more of a panic.
Part of it had to do with the transformation Olivia had made while planning their wedding. She’d become as excited about it as the other two women. He’d expected that of his sister and Lady Norley, but not of Olivia, who didn’t seem to have a girlish bone in her body. Why should she care, when their marriage would be more a way to satisfy their mutual desires than any sort of . . . romantic union? It was incomprehensible.
Yet here she was with the other two, discussing who would be her bridesmaids, which foods they should serve at the wedding breakfast, and what she should wear. Personally, he’d prefer she wore nothing, but he suspected her mother wouldn’t approve of such depravity. Though Olivia might.
He smiled a little at the thought.
Gwyn pounced on him. “So you agree with me and Olivia.”
Damn. They wanted his opinion. He didn’t have one. He just wanted to get the wedding over with so he could get right to the wedding night. Because every time he thought about the solemnity of wedding vows, a strange tightness gripped his chest. He wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t worthy.
Nonsen
se. Worthiness wasn’t an issue.
“Agree with you about what?” Thorn asked.
Olivia took up the fight. “Gwyn and I think it’s always better to have a head covering for a wedding in church, and a silk bonnet with ribbons and lace would be best.” She cast her stepmother a pitying glance. “Mama thinks I should just wear orange blossoms in my hair.”
That his fiancée and his twin already got along well pleased Thorn enormously, but there was such a thing as getting along too well. He disliked being left out of the plans entirely.
“Since we’re not marrying in a church,” he said, “I don’t see that it matters. We’re marrying at Rosethorn by special license, which I will—”
“Special license!” Lady Norley exclaimed. “That would be wonderful, Your Grace. And very kind of you.”
Ah, he had an unexpected ally in Lady Norley. “Yes, by special license, so we can marry as soon as we please wherever we please. And we’re only inviting family. God knows my family alone is large enough to fill the dining room, but we can squeeze a number of others in there from your own family.”
“It sounds as if you’ve made many of the decisions on your own already, without consulting your fiancée,” Olivia said archly.
Bloody hell. “You did say that if the dukes of Thornstock had all been married here, you wouldn’t want to break with tradition. Why, did you really want to marry in a church—have the banns read for three weeks and all that?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “But I’d like to keep the possibility open, if you don’t mind. And it might take me three weeks to get a gown made up that’s suitable.”
“I’m sure my husband would prefer that she marry in our parish church, Your Grace,” Lady Norley added. “He’s friendly with the local vicar, you see, who comes to hunt on our land sometimes. But all you need to say is ‘special license,’ and I imagine he will come around to your way of thinking.”
Thorn frowned. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I’ve yet to meet Olivia’s father.” God, he hadn’t even met his future father-in-law, the man whose blessing he would prefer to have for the union. This was moving almost as fast as the night he’d compromised Olivia and been caught by her stepmother.
It was better not to think about that too much—the fact that he was about to be leg-shackled, priest-linked, noosed . . . and every other slang term for a man entering the parson’s mouse trap without considering the consequences.
In any case, he’d had enough of wedding plans. He still had to finish writing the final scene of the play, which he’d figured out this morning while waiting for Olivia to wake up. That would take him a few hours, no doubt. Then all he had to do was keep silent about his authorship of the plays until this last one was performed and published. After that, he could give it up. He could, couldn’t he? Because if he told Olivia the truth about it . . .
No, that was unthinkable.
He rose. “Ladies, feel free to continue your discussion here or in the drawing room, whichever you find more comfortable. I have work to do before tomorrow’s journey, so I must absent myself. I’m happy with whatever you decide, be it a church wedding, a ceremony here in our chapel, or a ceremony in the Norley home. Just let me know in the morning if I need to obtain a special license. Good night.”
He left the dining room and headed for his study, but he’d barely entered the hallway when Olivia came hurrying out.
“Did you mean what you said about being happy with whatever we decide?” she asked.
“I generally mean what I say,” he told her, hoping he was successful in hiding his irritation at the whole process.
Warily she came closer. “You seem annoyed.”
She might have trouble understanding people, but she certainly had no trouble understanding him. He raked his hair with one hand. “I’m simply unaccustomed to being part of this sort of thing.”
She smiled tightly. “Wedding plans? Or not always getting your way?”
“Very amusing, sweeting.” He pulled her into his arms for a hard and thorough kiss that got him hot and bothered.
And her, too, judging from her quickened breathing after she drew back. “What am I to do with you?” she asked softly.
“A number of very wicked and wanton things you probably can’t do until we are very properly and completely wed.”
A light dawned in her face. “That’s why you want to marry so quickly.”
He smirked at her. “You certainly took your time about deducing that.”
“You didn’t explain it to me well enough.” She walked back toward the dining room door, then paused to give him a come hither look. “But now that you have, I do believe we’ll be marrying here by special license after all.”
He chuckled as she reentered the dining room. This marriage might actually work. At least he could be certain she would match his eagerness for bed sport. And surely that would be enough for him.
* * *
Olivia said good night to her mother much later than she should have, but they’d had a great deal to discuss with Gwyn, who’d just gone down the hall herself to bed. Now Olivia felt at loose ends. She wasn’t ready to retire, but neither did she feel like reading.
Perhaps she should ask Thorn what he wanted her to do with her laboratory. Would it remain here for her use? Would he prefer a building not so close to the house? If she had to pack it up tonight, that would be good to know.
You just want another fiery kiss, you wicked woman.
Yes. She did. When Thorn kissed her, he convinced her that she might not be making a mistake in marrying him. And she could use such reassurance right now. Because his continued insistence on seeing their future marriage as merely a physical and practical arrangement was starting to gnaw at her.
Looking both ways down the hall to make sure no one was around to see her, Olivia ran down the stairs and then found the door to Thorn’s study. It was a little ajar so she tapped as loudly as she dared, not wanting to draw anyone’s attention. And when he didn’t answer, she slipped inside to determine for sure if he was there.
He certainly was, but sound asleep. She walked over to look at him, where he sat with his head resting on the back of the chair and his eyes closed. Hard to believe that this handsome fellow, with his rumpled hair and well-muscled body, would soon be hers.
And what were all these papers strewn across his desk? They didn’t look like business letters or contracts or whatever other kind of work she’d assumed he was performing. With a furtive glance at Thorn to make sure he wasn’t awake, she picked a page up and stared at it.
It was written in the form of a play. One of the characters was named Felix. How odd. She picked up other pages and read them. This was definitely one of the Juncker plays . . . but not one she recognized. She’d seen—and read—them all, and this one wasn’t familiar to her.
Perhaps Thorn was reading Mr. Juncker’s latest manuscript to give the man a critique of sorts. Writers did that sometimes, didn’t they?
She carefully scanned through the pages on the desk, but she couldn’t find a single one with markings in a different handwriting. And she knew Thorn too well to think he wouldn’t have marked up Mr. Juncker’s manuscript. He would have taken a fiendish delight in correcting his friend’s mistakes.
Could Mr. Juncker have given Thorn the play as a gift, sort of like a poet offering a friend the first copy of his poem that hadn’t yet been published? If he had, it would have only been to mock Thorn for being jealous of him. While that fit with what she’d observed of their relationship, she couldn’t imagine Thorn reading Mr. Juncker’s latest play and referring to it as work he had to do.
A thought crept into her mind that was too awful to comprehend. Thorn had grown up in Germany just as Felix had. Mr. Juncker’s style of speech had been more poetic and flamboyant than the crisp wit of the dialogue in “his” plays.
Dear heaven, what if Konrad Juncker had merely given his name to Thorn’s plays? It would explain why Thorn was so
grouchy around him. It would explain Thorn’s seeming jealousy. He wasn’t jealous of Mr. Juncker’s success—he was annoyed he couldn’t acknowledge his part in that success.
But why wouldn’t he at least tell her? It made no sense. If he was the true author of the plays, she would think he’d confess it if only to make her stop going on and on about Mr. Juncker’s brilliance.
She leaned over the desk to note the quill still in Thorn’s hand, and the words at the end of it on the paper in a sentence only half written. That Thorn had been writing when he fell asleep. He was the author. He had to be.
He’d created the wonderful characters that so delighted her. Felix was surely based on him. Lady Grasping—who might she be? Not to mention the amusing Lady Slyboots, with all her attempts to snag a husband . . .
Her gasp of horror awakened Thorn.
Her. Slyboots was supposed to be her. And Grasping was Mama. They were the basis of the characters all of London laughed at and mocked. That’s why he hadn’t told her he was the author.
“Olivia?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. Then he saw what she’d been looking at, and said, in a lower, guiltier voice, “Olivia . . . it’s not what you think.”
“You mean, you aren’t writing plays under your friend Juncker’s name?”
He blinked. “Well, that is . . . what I’m doing, but I never meant . . . it wasn’t . . .”
Slyboots. He thought of her as some deceitful woman like Slyboots, always scheming for a husband. Oh, Lord! That was how he saw her? With a broken cry, she turned on her heel and headed for the door.
“No, no, no, no . . .” he chanted as he jumped up and came around the desk. “Damn it, Olivia—”
“Call me Slyboots. That’s who you think I am, isn’t it?”
He caught up to her and grabbed her by the arm. “You’re not Slyboots, I swear.” When she shot him an arch look, he added, “Not anymore. You might have been at the beginning, but only because I was angry at what had happened, and I . . . I wanted to feel . . .”
“Powerful,” she snapped. “In control. The almighty Duke of Thornstock surveying his domain as people curtsy and bow to him. Instead of the young man just landed in London whom people might mock for his odd sayings or awkward behaviors.”
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